Russia accused of shady acts in 27 nations
Allegations range from hacking to political subversion
Russia has meddled in the affairs of at least 27 European and North American countries since 2004 through interference ranging from cyberattacks to disinformation campaigns, according to an analysis by a surveillance organization. According to the report, the meddling started in former Soviet republics allied with the West and spread to Western Europe. More recently affected are Canada and the USA, where Congress and an independent counsel are investigating possible Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election.
The alleged Russian interference abroad was compiled by the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund, a non-profit organization that fosters closer bonds between the United States and Europe. In August, the group began tracking Russian efforts to influence U.S. public opinion through a network of Twitter accounts that disseminates messages helpful to the Kremlin.
Wednesday, Facebook said an internal investigation uncovered $100,000 in advertising spending by hundreds of fake accounts and pages, probably operated out of Russia, which sought to sow political division during the U.S. presidential election. The giant social network shared the findings with U.S. investigators.
The pattern of Russian government-linked behavior in the
USA is similar to that seen in other countries, said Laura Rosenberger, director of the alliance.
“These are all the tools they use to undermine democratic institutions in different places,” Rosenberger said. “For a lot of Americans, the question of Russian interference in U.S. elections came out of nowhere. It sounds crazy to most people that this has been part of the Russian playbook for more than a decade.”
Countries the alliance said have been targeted are: Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, Ukraine and the USA.
Targets include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces re-election this month.
Here are a few examples cited by the alliance:
April 5, 2004: Prime Minister Rolandas Paksas of Lithuania, a former Soviet republic, was impeached for granting citizenship to alleged Russian crime figure Yuri Borisov and leaking him classified information that he was under investigation. Borisov contributed $400,000 to Paksas’ 2003 election campaign.
April 27, 2007: Estonia, another former Soviet republic, accused hackers using Russian IP addresses of a wide-scale denial of service attack that shut down the Internet in Estonia, one of NATO’s newest members. The attack on government, newspaper and banking websites followed Estonian authorities’ decision to move a Soviet World War II memorial known as the Bronze Soldier from a central square in Tallinn, the Baltic nation’s capital. Russia denied involvement.
Aug. 7, 2008: Cyberattacks conducted from Russia brought Internet traffic to a halt in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, while Russian troops invaded Georgian territory.
January 2013: Spain’s Civil Guard unraveled a Russian mafia network accused of laundering large sums of money through Banco Madrid.
Sept. 17, 2014: Russian “election observers” from the Russian Public Institute of Electoral Law attempted to cast doubt on the validity of the Scottish referendum on independence from the United Kingdom a day before the vote.
July 22, 2016: WikiLeaks published about 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee that U.S. intelligence and independent cyber security firms said were stolen by Russian government hackers a month earlier.
March 9: Canada’s foreign minister was targeted in a Russian media campaign focusing on alleged Nazi links.
This spring: French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron was targeted by rumors about his sexual orientation and alleged corruption that were spread by far-right websites and relayed by Russian media. Macron was elected by a wide margin.
The Kremlin repeatedly has dismissed the allegations as antiRussian propaganda.
James Carden, executive editor of the American Committee for East-West Accord, which promotes better relations between the United States and Russia, said Moscow’s actions are no different from what the U.S. government does to promote its interests abroad, and they are “being blown up beyond any proportion.”
“We do it, they do it, the Chinese, Israelis, everyone is doing it,” Carden said.
The type of activity that Rosenberger’s staff compiled goes back much further than 2004, according to Dov Levin, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University.
Levin documented 36 attempts by the Russian or Soviet governments to influence elections around the world and 81 American attempts from 1946 to 2000.